Chronicle/Cory MorseLeticia, left, and Daniela Eggers, Brazilian sisters living in Norton Shores, have started an online business "Chocolate Gourmet Truffles" at www.chocolategourmettruffles.com. They are pictured inside Leticia's home Thursday. Enlarge photo

The gene that motivates a person to run a business must run in families.

If you don't think so, consider the Eggers family.

Daniela Eggers and her sister, Leticia Eggers Burmann, recently started a new business, but it's not the first for either of them. Although Eggers is just 28 and Burmann is 36, they both have previously started and operated their own businesses and now have started one together.

They say this business, Chocolate Gourmet Truffles, offers "the world's largest chocolate truffles." The truffles are slightly larger then golf balls, with a chocolate shell and a creamy filling that comes in an assortment of flavors.

Chronicle/Cory MorseA sample of the truffles Leticia and Daniela Eggers' offer through their online business "Chocolate Gourmet Truffles" at www.chocolategourmettruffles.com. The gourmet truffles are larger than golf balls and are packaged in boxes with ribbons and gift wrap. Enlarge photo

"They're big so they can hold more filling," said Eggers, the "master chocolatier."

Running a business comes naturally to them. They learned about the world of business from their father, who owns a plastic business in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where they grew up.

Because chocolate is very popular in Brazil, Eggers began making truffles as gifts for her friends. When they asked to buy the chocolate delicacies, she began her first chocolate business. "In Brazil, everybody always has chocolate in their homes and they eat it all the time," the sisters said.

After she decided to move to Michigan, it was only natural for Eggers to think about a chocolate business. "When I came, I brought chocolate from Brazil, but then I realized the chocolate here is the same," she said.

So the business was started, with Burmann developing the Web site showing pictures of each variety. The boxed assortment is available in different sizes and combinations.

Individual truffles are wrapped in plastic and labeled with the ingredients. They hope to expand the business to area stores.

Burmann and her husband, Harro Burmann, came to Michigan from Brazil four years ago. A vice-president with Dana Corp., Harro Burmann was transferred from the office in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Muskegon and later to Kalamazoo. The family continues to live in the Muskegon area.

Eggers moved to Michigan in November 2007. "I came to try something different. to change my life and to learn English," she said. She studied nutrition at a university in Brazil and worked as a dietician and caterer at a large company. In Brazil, it is not unusual for a company to provide a noon meal for employees at very low cost, they said.

Living in the United States was not completely foreign to them. "We had visited the United States before on vacation trips with our family," Burmann said.

Both sisters had studied English in school, but quickly learned that classroom English is very different from speaking and hearing it in the United States. Since they have been here, both Eggers and Burmann have studied extensively to become fluent in English. They both speak the language easily now, although Portuguese still is the favored language at home.

Creativity and ambition exist hand-in-hand in these business women. Shortly after she arrived, Burmann, who had run a cosmetics business in Brazil, started a business on the Internet, in both English and Portuguese, buying and selling Barbie dolls. A trained Webmaster, she also is an artist and sells her paintings on canvas on the Internet.

Although they are separated by many miles from their family home in Brazil, they return often in the winter, when it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The Burmann family includes son Harro, 12, and daughters Gabriela, 8, and Juliana, 6, as well as a hamster and two dogs.